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Princess Leia’s Stolen Death Star Plans

I was initially very skeptical of this when I first clicked on the link but ultimately I could not resist its sheer audacity. It’s a complete set of cover songs of The Beatles’ immortal album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” but every lyric has been modified to tell the story of “Star Wars Episode IV” in order. To be clear, the first song tells the story of Princess Leia starship absconding with the stolen plans; then each subsequent song continues to recount subsequent parts of the movie, ending with the final song narrating the destruction of the Death Star—and it all matches the track order of The Beatles’ original album. Here are the first few songs, matched to clips from the movie with the lyrics subtitled, to give you a sense of how complete is the execution of this crazy idea. You can see the rest of them on this YouTube page.

All told, it’s kind of an amazing lark that required perhaps too much free time, an unhealthy preoccupation with the source material and an absurd dedication to following through on inadvisable ideas. But it works and it’s incredibly impressive and highly entertaining. Musically, the cover versions themselves aren’t bad either. Even better, the whole thing is a fan project and so its makers are giving away the tracks for free. You can find download links and read more about it at paletteswapninja.com.